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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Thursday, March 19, 2015

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN RETREATS

I am not going to bellyache on about my illnesses,
but yesterday - particularly last night - was not very nice. I still can't hear
a thing, which makes my activities as a music journalist somewhat difficult.
However, there are two interesting bits of UK cryptozoological news. There have
been three sightings of a yellow legged tortoiseshell in Norfolk. Whether these
are ones that bred here last year and have successfully overwintered, or whether
they are stragglers from mainland Europe is unsure. Either way this is brilliant
news, because until last year there had only ever been one UK record of this
delightful butterfly, and that was back in 1953. There was a significant
invasion of our shores last year, and those people who care about such things
are hoping that this will lead to us having a new species on the books. The
species has already successfully colonised Sweden and Denmark.

And the other piece of news is particularly
gratifying for me. Twenty years ago, in my book The Smaller Mystery Carnivores
of the Westcountry, I annoyed a lot of people in the Natural History
establishment, including various folk at the Mammal Society and the Natural
History Museum, by insisting that our rarest carnivore, the Pine Marten, was not
extinct in the Westcountry. I was vilified by all and sundry, but recent
evidence has proved that relict populations have indeed hung on in parts of
England, and finally there has now been a trail cam picture from Cornwall.
Sometimes the old hippy can be right, so yah boo sucks.

The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#121) is another
bumper one at 96 pages and IS available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at
http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/.
It has Annie Haslam on the cover, and an exclusive interview with her inside, as
well as the Renaissance European Tour Dates. Doug Harr interviews Gryphon, but
of course the whole magazine was disrupted totally by the untimely death of
Daevid Allen on Friday. There are tributes and his last messages inside. We send
cartoonist Mark Raines to a Desert Island. Neil Nixon reports on an even
stranger album than usual, Wyrd goes avant garde and there are radio shows from
Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the titular
submarine dwellers are still lost at sea, although I have been assured that they
will hit land again soon. There is also a collection of more news, reviews,
views, interviews and pademelons trying to choose (OK, nothing to do with small
marsupials having difficulty in making choices, but I got carried away with
things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part
is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you
have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly
dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power
chaps, we have to share it!

* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to
write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and
want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and
spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to
read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more
traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we
all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine
(mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But
it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also
do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about
it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…

* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to
things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not
responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest
guv!

* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an
old hippy of 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song
by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown
cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a
small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his
bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of
social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the infantile orange cat?

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